A Global Cultural Encounter
In order for people to heal, they need to be heard.
In order for people to be heard, we need to listen.
In order to listen we need to sit down.
—to sit down side by side and take time in each other’s precious presence.
And this is what happened at the #GlobalCulturalAssembly (GCA) 2025, a gathering of almost 80 delegates from all continents as a collective endeavour of connecting museums and their collections with the indigenous communities. Curators, researchers, museum directors and heads of department, activists, educators, university professors, local entrepreneurs, community leaders, artists and writers: Gathering together to jointly develop new ways of international cooperation and cultural responsibility. The end of the week saw a powerful Declaration being drafted and signed by all delegates (see here) as well as a group of 7 nominated to carry on the work into the next 2 years (press release here).
PIRON Global Development was commissioned to facilitate this conference and this short piece shares a few insights from the process as well as the rich content shared at this Assembly (16-20 June 2025).
#1 More than a conference, it was a rich encounter
The 5 days were a gathering where delegates shared their hearts and minds, creating an unusual atmosphere of intimacy, sharing in vulnerable but courageous conversations. Here are a few of the sentences that stood out:
“Storytelling is the edge of the knife.”
“The Oceanic region alone has 800 languages”
“Some of us have lost our names, our clothes, our dialects - as migrants, we live in between spaces…”
“Museums must exhibit justice.”
“The industrial revolution was built on the backs of slave people - let us recognise the elephant in the room and call out for Transitional Justice.”
“It is not only a responsibility but our response-ability.”
“Re-membering means putting things back together - putting members (i.e., bones and skulls on display) back together, returning them to where they came from.”
“Nepal has no museum culture: why go to a place like that at all?”
“Museums sometimes seem to us as houses of the dead - there is no life there - we want to create houses of knowledge.”
“In order for people to heal, they need to be heard.”
“If we travel at the speed of trust, we arrive at our destinations.”
#2 Location matters, and history can be redeemed
It was powerful to see these conversations happening in a place that used to be a symbol of oppression. Fashioned as a Prussian Palace, the #HumboldtForum eagerly presents itself as “more than a museum”, where as a partnership between several institutions, there is a desire to do things differently. The fact the Humboldt Forum has hosted this process since 2022 and has pledged to facilitate this initiative into the coming years is proof of a different spirit.
Yet we cannot ignore that past sins cast long shadows. Or that there is a huge power imbalance between a powerful and historical German institution and remote Indigenous voices. This was openly addressed during the conference as someone quoted Frederik Douglass: “Power does not give up without the demand.”1
Therefore, it was powerful to see these conversations happening in a place that used to be a symbol of oppression. From the Berlin Team we worked with for 10 months and representatives of the Humboldt Forum there was a clear attitude to learn and to listen. Perhaps it is out of these small things that the redemption of history is made of.
#3 Stories help us go beyond “objects” into “entities”
All participants were moved when Dr. Tarisi Vunidilo, a Fijian archeologist and curator presented a short video of her project “Oceanbone”, which traced the history of a local community leader who was taken prisoner by colonisers and died en voyage before the ship reached its destination. His body was then used for scientific purposes to be analysed and ended up in a museum. Yet for his local indigenous community, his bones were not just “matter” - they actually mattered as they were sacred and contain memory. Dr. Tarisi’s project endeavours to bring many of these stolen bones back home.
Moved by watching the film, two things came to mind. One was, what would we think if our grandfather’s bones were displayed in a museum as a “curiosity” from a distant land? I am sure there was no consent involved. Another was that old biblical story where Joseph, the “Prince of Egypt” asked his fellow Israelites to “carry up my bones from here”2, at a time when as a people they were to leave Egypt (and the text describes this to happen over 400 years later).
Several delegates pointed out that talking about “objects” in a museum is a very Western, clinical and material approach. For many communities they are “entities” or “cultural belongings, (living) members of their heritage and history.
#4 Power imbalances can be faced when there is openness to listen to another’s world-view
During this week, space was made to listen to stories from around the world. Stories that came with locations that ceased to be a vague name on a map and now had faces all could see and voices all could hear (sometimes through translation). And these often brought a view that reflected their worldview - the sacred, the spiritual, the transcendent, and the communitarian walking into conversations.
Having a majority from non-European contexts truly contributed towards opening this conversation wider and addressing many “elephants in the room”.
#5 The art of facilitation starts with our own openness of heart… and a little music always helps!
This was a challenging assembly to facilitate. Such a diverse group with such deep and rich conversations often made the tension in the room feel palpable. At one point, someone said, “I felt I was in a therapy session!”
Yet Ulrich Nitschke and I truly enjoyed and felt honoured to be part of such a process, seeking to hold the space open for all contributions, making room for meaningful exchanges, encouraging an atmosphere of trust building and a place where people could truly meet each other - even if we had to change the program at the last minute. Uli brought his handpan and I my guitar, - after all, this was more than a meeting of minds.
In our fractious world, and given our current tensions, it was a precious moment to see how it is truly possible to build bridges, build trust and have a genuine global encounter.
#FaithInDevelopment #GlobalCulturalAssembly
Many thanks to Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, a Haida artist and delegate at the Assembly who sketched the cover photo - https://mny.ca/
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1 Frederik Douglass: 19th cent. African-American leader, journalist and abolitionist.
2 Book of Genesis 50:25.